Canadian Economy Tumble … Given the historical relationship between cross-border trade and global economic activity, report from the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis that world trade volumes seem to be consolidating but are within a hair's breadth of turning negative on a year-over-year basis suggests that another global downturn is on the cards. Weak economic data from Europe, China, Japan and the U.S. reinforced fears of a deeper global downturn.Europe's troubles continued to hit exporters around the world … The Canadian Economy has been caught in a Perfect Storm: World demand slowing, commodity prices weakening and Canadian consumers extremely leveraged … – Financial Iceberg

Dominant Social Theme: All countries go through rough patches, and Canada will bounce back.

Free-Market Analysis: We were impressed by this article posted at the Financial Iceberg (see above) – as it summarized in depth what some other recent articles have also alluded to regarding Canada's suddenly precarious economic situation.

The Financial Iceberg is run by Jean-Pierre Desloges, CFA, "an independent trader with over 25 years of experience working on the buy and sell-side."

Desloges says that Financial Iceberg "started out in Oct 12′ as a way for me to share my thorough research, provide trade ideas, and keep a trading journal that kept me accountable and systematic in my trading … I'll use mainly graphics, statistics and facts, links and any other device that I feel necessary to get my points across."

He certainly keeps his word when it comes to charts and graphs. This article is adorned with them, and their presence adds gravity to his argument that the Canadian economy – quietly – has arrived at something of a crisis point. Here's more from the article:

Canada on the short term economic outlook is positioned for a perfect storm: World demand slowing, commodity prices weakening and Canadian consumers extremely leveraged. A weakening trade sectors combined with a softening housing market could act as a tremendous drag GDP.

Canada's economy performed relatively well in the aftermath of the financial crisis, as low borrowing costs spurring a credit boom, much of which was used to buy houses. But with household debt at record levels, consumers are beginning to pullback, which is causing the housing boom to deflate to more normal levels …

Canadian firms have been facing competitiveness challenges in recent years resulting from the persistent strength of the Canadian dollar and poor productivity performance relative to major trade competitors, other factors such as to whom Canada sells its products and the product it sells, have also significantly affected the performance of Canadian exports.

Over the past decade, the structure of the geographic market to which Canada exports, with a large weight on the relatively slow-growing U.S. market, and a small weight on other economies, particularly the relatively fast-growing emerging market economies, has exerted the majority of the overall net negative impact on Canadian exports.

Though we Canadians like to convince ourselves that it's different here and the economy will behave differently from the world trend despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, history remind us that this belief is as irrational as it is dangerous.

Canada is not immune of an economic slowdown…

In fact, our perspective would be that a Canadian slowdown has been in the works for some time, but not just for purely economic reasons. We continually return to the idea – and there is plenty of evidence to do so – that certain elements of the power elite are entirely serious about the creation of a "North American Union."

Top elites do not equivocate about a global end game – one that will result in international government and a North American Union between Mexico, Canada and the US would be another step in this direction.

Much of the policy moves being made in the US would seem to support the creation of this nascent union. Immigration reform, Mexico's drug war and even the so-called war on terror are also supportive of consolidation.

As Mexico destabilizes, the US offers more help and becomes more intertwined from a security standpoint with the Mexican government. The war on terror has provided a pretext to bring together Canadian civil and military policing efforts as well.

But it is in the economic sphere that the battle to create a North American Union will be waged. Already the US economy has been severely diminished by central banking manipulations. We would not be surprised to see Canada's economy suffer a similar demise. Mexico's economy is being consistently destabilized via its "drug war."

As the economies of these three countries are "adjusted," they may also become easier to merge into one economic unit. Western economic dysfunction makes sense when seen within the larger context of elite intentions to create world government. The West has indeed been diminished economically while top BRIC developing nations have risen.

Within this context, too, an economic bust in Canada makes sense. There is nothing like economic turmoil to provide a centralizing influence. If we are correct, then Canada will continue to suffer a continued industrial and market meltdown.

After Thoughts

It would seem to be natural enough, merely an extension of current economic trends, but we would argue it is perhaps more evidence of what we call "directed history."